Developer Gets Permission For Slightly Higher Roofs In Whispering Hills

The Barnegat Township Planning Board has approved Walters Development Company’s request to build nine townhouses with roofs that are just over 2 feet taller than the township's height requirement. 

A representative of the company argued Tuesday night that because of the area’s unique topography, the slightly taller roof would actually look exactly the same as the other structures in the development. The Planning Board agreed.  

“When you drive down the street, you are not going to see any difference,” attorney Damien Del Duca, who represented Walters Development, told the board last night.

The townhouses will be built on the northern side of Rose Hill Road, about 700 feet away from the intersection with Barnegat Boulevard, as a part of the Whispering Hills Development. The development will feature a 211-lot residential community with townhouses, single-family homes and affordable- to moderate-income housing apartment buildings spread out over an 85-acre area.

Del Duca and Walters Development Engineer Edmond C. Speitel argued that due to the sloping lots and their proximity to the storm water basins, the other options available to the building company would result in less value for the residents of these future homes.

Granting the height variance request would “help promote general welfare and create a desirable visual environment,” Del Duca said.

If forced to comply with the height requirement, Walters would have to either fill the backyards to make the ground more level, or make the roofs shorter.

“We could fill the backyards 5 feet,” Speitel said. “That would put us in compliance with the height ordinance. But it would make the yard unusable.”

Speitel also said that Walters worried about a potential overflow from the nearby storm water basins, which could fill basements with water.  

Shortening the height of the building would have cost the company the same amount of money, Speitel and Del Duca said. But the results wouldn’t look good.

“It’s going to kind of look like a munchkin roof is the best way I could describe it,” Speitel said.

Some board members expressed concerns over setting a precedent. Some also worried about fire safety issues, if fire personal will need to access the slightly higher roof. However, the board discussed that projects like these have been approved in the past, and the fire department had indicated that the height did not pose a problem for them.

 “We had a similar high variance for the affordable housing development on Route 9,” Speitel said.

Still, “We establish rules and regulations and they’re for everybody,” said board member Frank Pecci. “If we keep on making the exceptions to the rule, then soon we will have no rule.”

Planning Board member Jerry Harper also had some reservations about granting the variance, but the shorter roofs argument swayed him. “I agree that it would have been senseless to turn around and make a roofline that would make it look so much different from the other buildings,” Harper said.

In the end, the board voted 7 to 1 to approve Walters’ application.

Walters started construction on Whispering Hills in 2008, with the first families moving into the new units the following summer. Today, 48 homeowners reside in Whispering Hills. The work on the lots considered by the planning board last night began just this month, according to the Walters spokesperson Evelyn Francisco. Now with all the approvals in place, Walters expects to complete the townhouses four months from now.